The Apache Ant plug-in is a tool for allowing you to easily run Ant targets within FlashDevelop. You can specify which targets to show in the menu, and specify targets to replace the built-in Build (Gear) and Run (Arrow) behaviors.

Why would anyone want such a thing, you ask? In complex projects, you may need to compile multiple run-time shared libraries and multiple applications. You may want to make your build configuration easily portable between Flex Builder, FlashDevelop, and other IDEs. Ant also provides a robust framework for other common tasks such as packaging, version control, and deployment.

Download: http://www.filamentgames.com/project_files/flashdevelop/ant/Ant_Plugin_v1.0.fdz

Todo

A form for editing per-project Ant settings
Integration with the Ant Panel plugin

Changelog
1.0
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Fix: Now properly clears results panel when running Test Movie

Beta 3
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Fix: No longer gets stuck when running tasks that spawn sub-processes (Like the Flash IDE)
Fix: No longer fails to build projects with spaces in the project path
Fix: Menu no longer breaks when switching between projects
New: You can set ant to log in verbose mode for debugging purposes (requires editing xml file)

Beta 2
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New: Supports Keyboard shortcuts (Requires editing xml file)
New: Supports hiding targets from the menu (Requires editing xml file)
Mod: Refactored code that was running on secondary threads to synchronize properly with the main thread
Fix: No longer crashes when running Zap and the process is actually not running.

Beta 1
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New: Packaged as an FDZ for easy installation.
New: Basic AS3 project template w/ Ant integration.
New: Stores settings in a seperate file instead of using the project file. It works with any project type and you can retrofit an existing project to integrate with the plugin.
New: Updates the status bar text when running an Ant target.
Fix: Test Movie will now capture traces with FDB in the output panel when using an Ant target.
Fix: If there is no Build Project or Test Movie target, it will default to the built-in behavior.

Alpha 1
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Initial release

Just curious, what are the main advantages to using ANT rather than relying on FlashDevelop and the settings in the project file for compiling?

Good question. For posterity, I edited my first post to include a justification for the plugin.

This is a fantastic plugin idea. I am very excited to try this out. With ANT you have far more options in terms of deployment and defining pre and post build actions along with many many other features!

I'm not understanding how this works. I've installed the plug-in, but I see no options anywhere...

Kyle

OK, found it haha... is there anyway to set configuration files?

There is an .antproj file with the same name as your .as3proj file that is a simple XML file that should be commented so you can see what you can set.

Could you provide a bit more documentation? How do I use this?

If I run either 'Test Movie', or 'Build Project', I get the error message '(Test Movie/Build Project) target is missing: Test. Check your project compile options.'

I also can't understand how it work. Can st0nerhat give us a example ?